Ok, I admit that that subject line probably didn't go over well. So, I'll explain what I'm looking for.

I'm looking for a super-hero game that uses only original character concepts. It's pretty much that simple. There's probably dozens of systems that help people create originals, and freeform expands that to near limitless levels... so, I'm looking for a group that employs only originals.

I don't have a problem with anyone who wants to play a cannon from any of the dozen or so universes, I don't care to, but that's me. I tend to shy away from using the intellectual property of someone who is trying to make a living from it and prefer the freedom of my own creations.

I've seen literally scores of games in half a dozen or more universes that all seem to want to use established heroes... but is there anyone out there doing it the hard way and using all original creations? I would love to join you!

It's the 1980's and thus far the world has been protected by a small number of independent super-heroes. This hasn't sat too well with the US government, who would prefer a group they can control. So allied with various members of the arms, pharmaceutical, and marketing industries, they create their own team of heroes... the Superiors.

So the idea behind this would be to present the lives of these would-be heroes. Now not all of them would be all that heroic. Some would be picked for their loyalty to the powers that be or their popularity with the public. And with so many masters, their deeds might not always be that good. If you've ever read The Boys, that's sort of the feel I'm looking at.

In the early part of the 20th century, people thought they had seen it all. Every corner had been discovered and even the sky had been tamed by humanity. Then in 1933, Professor Caliban came to public attention. This enigmatic world traveler stunned even the most jaded with reports of his inhuman strength and seeming invulnerability. Four years later, an urban legend began being whispered amongst the underworld about a shadowy figure known as the Hooded Owl who preyed up criminals. Both strange figures remained somewhat out of the public, either off in some hidden corner of the globe or in the darkest of alleyways. Then World War II broke out. At first it seemed that both Caliban and the Owl weren't involving themselves in the combat. But then the duo interrupted an occult ceremony being performed by Nazi mystics. Their goal had been to summon a Valkyrie and bind her to their control. But Prof Caliban and the Hooded Owl stopped this and the battle maiden called Valkyrja joined them in a paranormal strike team nicknamed the First Force.

For decades the First Force had many adventures and battle various menaces. Prof Caliban and Valkyrja seemed ageless. The Hooded Owl did as well but the original had secretly passed his mantle to a successor. They were willing to aid the US government until the 1960's. During that decade, the treatment of civil rights demonstrators and the bloodshed in Southeast Asia soured the First Force's relationship with Washington. Prof Caliban decided to concentrate on his private space exploration program. Valkyrja relocated to Europe. The Hooded Owl simply went back to the shadows. With such valuable assets lost to them, members of the American government decided to create their own wonders, ones completely under their command. They contracted long-time arms manufacturer Aegis Industries and a cutting edge biotech firm called Next-Gen to develop such beings.

Project Prometheus, as the operation was dubbed, soon realized their goal would not be achieved overnight. It would takes years of research. In the meantime, the discoveries they made en route made Aegis Industries and Next-Gen global players in the world of economics. Things finally came to a head in the early 1980's. The reason was the return of the First Force to public attention. Prof Caliban successfully flew a spacecraft to Mars and back. The Hooded Owl (actually the third) prevented an assassination attempt on the president. Valkyrja led various reform efforts in Eastern Europe. The US government felt they had reached another Sputnik moment. Luckily they were within a few years of finally achieving their goal. But they need more than super-powered beings, they needed heroes. So a fourth member was brought into the mix, the international marketing firm Image Nation. Image Nation helped select just who would make up this team as well as creating their look and their name... the Superiors. And in 1986, the world was finally ready to find out just who these Superiors are.

The Superiors work for the US government but in the capacity of civilians. It was decided that any sort of direct military or law enforcement connection might make the public uneasy. In addition, the source of the team's powers is classified. The cover story is that they all acquired their abilities independently and the government has been kind enough to help train and support them. Hoping to ease the burden on the taxpayer, three major corporations help fund the Superiors. It can be guessed what those three are. What the public doesn't know is that the Superiors return the favor in other ways besides photo-ops. All in all, the Superiors are a team with plenty of skeletons in the closet... and some people want to find out what those are.

I once had an idea for a game based off of Heroes (new characters and everything) where ordinary people gain extraordinary abilities and have to deal with them, unable to let others know because of fear of government persecution.

However, I'd need someone to help me design the game. My character had total control over his bones and very fast healing (no point in making a bone sword out of your arm if you bleed out from it, right?)

The best super-hero game I've ever played was in the three color golden age and I loved it. I know that today, everyone wants gritty and dark, but there's something to be said for Truth, Justice and The American Way. *chuckles*

The best super-hero game I've ever played was in the three color golden age and I loved it. I know that today, everyone wants gritty and dark, but there's something to be said for Truth, Justice and The American Way. *chuckles*

I wouldn't mind something Golden Age. I pitched something like that once but got zero nibbles. Silver Age could be fun too.

The best super-hero game I've ever played was in the three color golden age and I loved it. I know that today, everyone wants gritty and dark, but there's something to be said for Truth, Justice and The American Way. *chuckles*

Personally, I think I'd most favor something sort of in the middle. Something grounded in realism, but unafraid to explore the fantastical.

I think that's something I'm really liking about Arrow season 2. Its still grounded in realism like the first season, but its gradually including more and more fantastic elements to it. (Even season 1 had a

SPOILERSPOILERSPOILER

earthquake machine.)

I also like having more complex characters than you saw in earlier eras of comic books, but I also don't like how so often 'complexity' is mistaken with 'brooding'. Characters don't all have to be the Punisher and Wolverine to be mature characters.

I guess in short, I really like world and stories that get the balance... stories that can be realistic without being stripped of all the wonder and fantasy that makes super heroes great, that can have deep, mature and complex characters without being too cynical and dark, and basically stick true to what we love about super heroes (that they can do the things we wish we could, and find justice in an often unjust world) while still recognizing how the world actually is (again, not always just and not always fair.)

tealdeer, I love fantastic shiny super heroes, but I also like them a little more deep than you got them back in ye olde days of comics.

Sidenote: I love New Teen Titans such a great series! (I mean the classic series CALLED New Teen Titans; the recent Teen Titans series is shit.)

I love Silver Age superhero stuff (Jack Kirby, Classic Marvel, heck, even the '60s Batman TV series is a big favorite of mine) but it might be hard to get a lot of players to sign up for that. Semi-realism is definitely more popular these days.

I don't see why you couldn't do Golden Age with more depth, the main reason it was 3 color and shallow was because it was the times and the readership was either younger, or the world didn't want to be reminded every minute that it's a nasty, evil and unfair world. For much the same reasons that The Pulps were so popular at the time, it was as much an escape from the reality of the world as a cheap form of entertainment for it's time to cost ratio. I mean, for a nickle in the early 30's, you got a couple or three hours of adventure and out of this world fantasy of a place where good won over evil and men (and women) of morals were respected.

I don't have a problem with Silver Age, it's a fine middle ground in my eyes, some of our most famous heroes came from Silver Age and have simply changed with the times. But, you still had a clear line between good and evil and even those who skirted that line had some reason to do so.

Sadly, I've never liked the stuff very much in Iron or after. Again, if I want to see the world as it is, I can look out the window... figuratively speaking, or turn on the news. Heroes don't seem so much like heroes anymore so much as powerful people who as often as not sink to the level of those who they fight to maybe get balance in their little part of the world. I'm not against it, but I still tend to play characters with a strong moral, if not sexual compass and want to make the world a better place by removing threats to it via law and order.... If you want to be serious about, do the police ever actually try someone that Superman or spider man left hanging around the stationhouse with a note, "These are bad guys." A little unreality is nessessary simply to have a super-hero... so why crawl in the dirt if you don't have to?

Anyway, There isn't any law that says that a particular age must be restricted to this or that, the great thing about role-playing is that you can pretty much create your own feel.

I don't see why you couldn't do Golden Age with more depth, the main reason it was 3 color and shallow was because it was the times and the readership was either younger, or the world didn't want to be reminded every minute that it's a nasty, evil and unfair world. For much the same reasons that The Pulps were so popular at the time, it was as much an escape from the reality of the world as a cheap form of entertainment for it's time to cost ratio. I mean, for a nickle in the early 30's, you got a couple or three hours of adventure and out of this world fantasy of a place where good won over evil and men (and women) of morals were respected.

I don't have a problem with Silver Age, it's a fine middle ground in my eyes, some of our most famous heroes came from Silver Age and have simply changed with the times. But, you still had a clear line between good and evil and even those who skirted that line had some reason to do so.

Sadly, I've never liked the stuff very much in Iron or after. Again, if I want to see the world as it is, I can look out the window... figuratively speaking, or turn on the news. Heroes don't seem so much like heroes anymore so much as powerful people who as often as not sink to the level of those who they fight to maybe get balance in their little part of the world. I'm not against it, but I still tend to play characters with a strong moral, if not sexual compass and want to make the world a better place by removing threats to it via law and order.... If you want to be serious about, do the police ever actually try someone that Superman or spider man left hanging around the stationhouse with a note, "These are bad guys." A little unreality is nessessary simply to have a super-hero... so why crawl in the dirt if you don't have to?

Anyway, There isn't any law that says that a particular age must be restricted to this or that, the great thing about role-playing is that you can pretty much create your own feel.

I love anti-heroes, but I do think they're better used sparingly. Anti-heroes are, in my opinion, more fun when they're the exception. When everyone lives in moral grey areas, it becomes... well... bland and uninteresting; too much like reality. Anti-heroes work best when its made clear that they ARE stepping over a line; that its not just a shitty, dark world, but rather that this character is individually willing to cross a line to get things done.

What appeals to me in modern comics is more the depth of character you can find (in good comics), not the dark and gritty edginess. I think the early modern age of comics was just awful, because you had everyone and their grandmother trying to be edgy and EXTREME. Plus the 90's gave comics Rob Liefeld. If you could try a decade for crimes against humanity, the 90's would get the death penalty for Liefeld alone.

Not to say I don't love grey area at times. Villains United and Secret Six are probably my favorite comics of all time, and the 'heroes' of those stories include Deadshot and Bane. Of course, that might have something to do with those series being written by Gail Simone who is an absolute legend and brilliant writer. But I think that's the big thing. A great writer can write a story with grey area and make it work, whereas a bad (or even good) writer just leaves you staring at the comic going "THIS is our hero?" Grey area is a hard thing to work in a genre that's big appeal is the idea that there's these big, powerful heroes who will fight to make sure good wins out over evil.

AT ANY RATE, I worry this is going more off on a tangential conversation about the history and appeal of comics, and not so much about an rp.

I fear that you may be right and I will offer apologies. My intention when I mentioned Golden Age was as a sort of statement of interest in the setting, as I would be interested in Silver Age and even some light dip into Irn.

There's nothing wrong with morally ambiguous characters, but like you, if everyone is, then where is the hero that you are looking for to be a symbol of right and justice as opposed to someone who simply says that it's ok to become what you fight because right and justice are just terms in a dictionary.

I tend to stay away from PVP, mainly because I've had more, much more bad experience with it than good. Few players want to lose a struggle and simply ignore everything and expect you to take it... or ignore it too. Not all that much fun for me.

But, anyway, I'm not going to be all that picky about setting, just saying that I tend to like cleaner lined heroes than darker ones.

I'm interested in this. I did have a question, though. I know you said you're not fond of PvP games, but would you be opposed to a villain? I don't mind losing more times then not, and I think you'll find a mutual villain quite engaging to the plot.

I had been thinking of trying to put together a player driven superhero rp but I get sidetracked easily (as anyone who has rped with me knows). The basics framework was to have 5-6 heroes, 2-3 villains, and a couple of neutral characters that might get involved on either side as it suits them. Ideally the range of active characters should be between 10-12 and the action could be split across however many supervillain plots are going on. The villains would be a bit stronger than the heroes so that one on one a hero would probably be lose. However, when the heroes work together or enlist the aid of a neutral, it makes the villains defeatable. Ideally it would run itself as long as all the players are willing to accept defeat at some point, with the villains creating the opposition to push the story along.